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Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Australian Teenager Completes Solo Trip

Wow what a courageous kid,& obviously skilled too,.Congrats to Jessica Watson ,imagine travelling in such a small craft,around the world by yourself.....

SYDNEY, May 16, 2010 (AFP) - Australian teenager Jessica Watson says that she talked to herself and yearned for land during the seven-month voyage which saw her become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.

Watson sailed into Sydney Harbour a national hero on Saturday, with tens of thousands of people gathered to welcome the 16-year-old home from the unassisted journey during which she had battled towering waves and loneliness.

She said the reception, which was led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was "pretty amazing" after months at sea during which she barely saw another boat, let alone a fellow human being.

Asked whether she had begun to talk to herself because of the solitude, she said: "I’ve always done that. I did notice that towards the end I was probably talking to myself more."

"Everyone seems to think, ’Out there by yourself, ooh spooky, creepy. But it’s not actually like that out on the water," she told Network Ten, adding that there had been some occasions when it was so calm it was eerie.

Watson, who had earlier told reporters she had been craving fresh fruit and a salad after her voyage, revealed she hardly ever slept at night on the boat, preferring to nap during the early hours of the morning.

And she said it was the rocking of the waves, as much as the physical efforts of sailing, which wore on her during the 23,000-nautical mile voyage.

"Just the constant motion, it just gets you after a while. Especially after a rough week," she said in the first of several carefully arranged media interviews recorded shortly after her arrival.

"All you want to do is just walk around a room, or lie down, do anything without clinging on, holding on the whole time."

The teenager, who had been criticised before her departure as too young and inexperienced for the perilous journey after she crashed into a freighter in a trial run, also admitted to doubts about the voyage.

"For a while there it was driving me mad because I hadn’t actually done any solo sailing and there I was telling the world I was about to sail solo, non-stop, unassisted around the world," she said.

"I knew I could do it but it was just that niggling doubt."

Watson was Sunday keeping a low profile, resting at a Sydney hotel with her nearest and dearest and enjoying her first sleep-in in several months, while the media hailed her a hero.

"You don’t have to be someone special to achieve something amazing, you’ve just got to have a dream, believe in it and work hard. I’d like to think I’ve proved that anything really is possible if you set your mind to it."